


Meridian

by albabutter



Category: Inception (2010), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:31:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albabutter/pseuds/albabutter
Summary: The first time Dean ever uses the PASIV, his father drops him into a war zone. He wets himself two minutes in. A bullet to the head wakes him up, and he throws up all over himself and doesn’t sleep for a week.The first time Sam goes under, he shoots John in the face and doesn’t speak to either of them for a month.John calls it a promising start.





	1. Chapter 1

Summer in Lawrence is relentless. No breeze, no rain, and everyone and their mom seems to be in the grocery store--buying beer, fighting for ice, and soaking up the free A/C. Dean is definitely in hell. 

“Sammy, for the last time--I know what a vegetable is. Relax.”

Dean shoves his phone between his cheek and his shoulder and starts shoving ears of corn into a plastic bag. 

“You hear that? That’s the sound of fresh corn. Not even frozen.”

Sam sighs. “Corn has basically no nutritional value.”

“It’s green!”

“Grab some squash.”

“We’re midwesterners, Sam. We eat corn.”

Dean compromises and grabs the pre-made kebabs; he’s pretty sure the yellow bits are squash. 

* * *

It takes them four trips to get everything into the house, and there’s no way it won’t take at least twenty minutes to put it all away. Dean inches towards the doorway, but Sam pins him with a glare.

“Don’t even think about it.”

A scream interrupts him, and Dean makes a break for it. 

“Dean!”

“Sorry, man. Duty calls!”

He whips around the corner and is promptly tackled. 

“Uncle Dean!”

Dean staggers; he’s got an armful of brown hair, a cloud of blonde curls wound around his knees, and a sixty pound menace trying to jump onto his back. 

“Hello, favorite nieces.”

He stumbles to the couch and has about ten seconds to catch his breath and  _ god, when did he get so old _ before it starts all over again. 

“Thing One, Thing Two, and Cindy Lou Who, give me a minute will ya? Your uncle is getting old.”

Three sets of blue eyes stare at him, and it hasn’t gotten less creepy over the years. Emma, because she’s a smartass and a true Winchester, rolls her eyes. 

“You’re already old.” And wow if that doesn’t feel like a kick in the balls. 

He puts her in a headlock and gives her the worst noogie she’s had in at least a month. 

“Dammit, Dean!”

Jess stomps into the room. “Do you have any idea how long it takes me to comb those freaking knots out?”

“Probably at least half as long as getting the knots out of Sam’s.”

Emma glares at him through a tangled curtain of brown hair, and she’s such a carbon copy of her father that he has to laugh. It’s less funny when Sam smacks him upside the head as he passes through the room. 

Becca, who seems to think that Dean is her personal jungle gym, pokes at him until he stands up and tucks her under his arm like a football. His arms don’t shake, but the muscles burn, and Christ, maybe he is getting old. It doesn’t help that she’s letting her arms and legs hang like deadweight. Little snot is probably doing it on purpose. 

“Where are we going?”

“Depends. Did you do what I asked?”

“Depends. Did you get what I asked for?”

She squirms, and Dean sets her down at the bottom of the stairs. He kneels down and she leans toward him and whispers, “I put the clown in the shower.”

“Excellent work, my young padawan.”

They high five. 

“The poptarts are on top of the fridge behind the raisin bran.”

Becca squints at him. “Wild berry?”

He scoffs. “Of course. What am I, a savage?”

She’s got Sam’s eyes and Jess’s nose, but the smirk is all Dean. She’s going to be a nightmare in a few years; he can’t wait. 

Hannah is still on the couch, the sweetest and the least demonic of all the Winchester offspring, and she’s completely spoiled rotten. She’s the perfect blend of Jess and Mary and equally capable of wrapping every Winchester man around her little finger. She smiles when she sees him, all pearly white teeth and crinkled eyes. She lets out a massive fart and laughs herself silly. 

“Honestly? That’s just impressive. Did you wait for me to come back to do that?”

A high pitched scream comes from upstairs, and Becca comes sliding into the room, half a poptart hanging out of her mouth. Dean throws Hannah over his shoulder. 

“Abort! Abort! He’s found the clown!”

Emma meets them out on the patio, also eating a poptart. Jess looks distinctly unimpressed. 

“Are y’all trying to give your father a heart attack?”

Emma sputters, crumbs flying out of her mouth. 

“I didn’t do it!”

Another high pitched scream.

Emma grins. “I did  _ that _ .”

She turns to Becca. “Back of the door.”

“Nice!”

They high five, and Dean has never felt prouder. 

* * *

As per usual, they send him home with enough leftovers to feed a third world country along with a thousand hugs and kisses, and roughly ten thousand questions about how he’s really doing and what he’s doing with his life.

“Okay, let me remind you that I’m the co-owner of a successful body shop-”

“And I’m happy to have you there,” John says, gruffly. 

“But you’d be happier with a couple more grandkids to spoil?”

“Wouldn’t say no, but I just want you to be happy. What happened to Lisa? And Cassie?”

“Nothing happened to them, Dad. Christ, you make it sound like they just disappeared. It just didn’t work out. It felt-” Off. Didn’t feel bad. Just didn’t feel right. 

“Ignore him, hon.”

Mary pushes John out of the way and steps up to Dean. 

“John, go help wrangle your grandbabies into getting ready for bed.”

John grumbles, but he goes. 

“Thirty years old, and I’m still disappointing him.” He’s joking but it comes out a little more bitter than he was expecting. 

Mary cups his face. 

“Dean, listen to me. You could never disappoint us. Never. Have kids, don’t. Get married, don’t. All I want, all  _ we _ want, is for you to be happy. No matter what that looks like.”   
She pulls him into a hug, and he falls into it. It’s easy to cling to her, like he’s five years old again. It’s harder to ignore the way she smells like smoke. When they pull apart, he frowns at her. 

“What?”

“Nothing. You just, you smell like smoke.”

She stares back, confused, and there’s a moment where Dean feels like everything--the crickets, the giggles of his nieces, the sprinklers in the yard all freeze, but then Mary brightens. 

“Oh, yeah. Walt was burning leaves earlier. Guess it kind of stuck to me.”

She leans up and kisses his cheek, and this time, all Dean can smell is her perfume and summertime honeysuckle. 

* * *

Sundays are slow days at the shop, and Dean usually spends the better part of it under the impala. Winchester Body shop can handle any car, but their speciality is vintage and antique. There’s just something so satisfying about restoring a vehicular gem to its badass glory. For better or worse, the impala’s the only baby he’ll ever truly need. Anything after is just gravy.

Dean blasts some Black Sabbath and gets to work. He loses himself to tinkering for the better part of an hour before he hears the chime of a bell that means customer approaching. 

“Just a minute!”

Whoever it is doesn’t listen. Dean hears the footsteps and tilts his head. Black dress shoes, brand new. Dean sighs. Not his favorite kind of customer. Dean slides himself out from under the car and sits up. The shoes belong to a slim man with a trenchcoat, a serious case of five o’clock shadow, and the kind of blue eyes that make you rethink your definition of the color. The man holds out his hand and hauls Dean up. He doesn’t let go. 

“Are you Dean Winchester?”

Fuck. He hopes this isn’t the IRS. 

“Uh, yeah. The one and only.”

The guy tilts his head, something in his face that Dean can’t quite read. He nods. 

“I’m sorry.”

But before Dean can ask him what the fuck he’s talking about, the man whips out a gun and pulls the trigger. 

* * *

The first thing Dean does when he wakes up is roll over and vomit. He hears it hit the floor, slick on tile, and worse, he feels himself rolling down towards it. But a pair of hands, firm and familiar, grab him and settle him back onto the couch. Dean groans, and Sam swims into view--except it’s not him. Or it is. But it’s a different Sam. This one is older, tired, and hardened in a way that tells Dean that this Sam is definitely not the happily married father of three little girls.

This Sam, the real Sam, can assemble a gun in the dark and has never braided a pigtail in his life. This Sam spends his days breaking into people’s heads. 

This Sam is the only family he’s got left. 

It’s unbearable, and Dean has to lean over to throw up again. 

“Oh god, Sammy,”he croaks. 

Sam holds him, murmuring something that Dean can’t quite understand. It doesn’t matter because Dean can’t hear anything over his own dry heaving and sobbing. 

“You should have just left me there. Why couldn’t you just leave me. I should have stayed.”

Sam doesn’t say anything--just grips him tighter. 

* * *

The first time Dean ever uses the PASIV, his father drops him into a war zone. He wets himself two minutes in. A bullet to the head wakes him up, and he throws up all over himself and doesn’t sleep for a week.

The first time Sam goes under, he shoots John in the face and doesn’t speak to either of them for a month.

John calls it a promising start. 

John Winchester is an Army Ranger who’s spent the better part of his life mourning his wife and rooting around in the minds of suspected terrorists. 

His sons end up somewhere in the middle. 

John teaches them how to use C-4, control the recoil on a sawed off shotgun, and how to bury their secrets deep. He’s thorough and brutal, and the only parent that Dean has left. 

“Listen to me, Dean. There’s a lot of evil out in the world. Men who’ll break down your door and shoot you in the streets just because they can. Men who will break into your head and trap you in nightmares for what feels like a lifetime. Men who will try to tear this family apart.”

Dean, who watches Sammy pull further and further away, who sleeps with a knife under his pillow and spends half his days training his subconscious to eradicate anything that even feels like a threat--wonders when his father became one of those very men he warned his sons about. But he just nods and says, “yes, sir” and buries his anger down just a little bit more. 

John always builds the dreams, and lets them populate with their own projections. Dean starts using the PASIV when he’s eleven. Sam starts when he’s twelve. Dean’s used to it, but Sam fights it. 

“He’s a nosy bastard. Why can’t he just read our journals like a normal asshole dad?”

“Yeah, I’ve read your journal, dude. Real snoozefest. He’s just trying to protect us. No one wants your boring secrets, Sammy.”

And he’s not wrong. Dean knows that his dad doesn’t give a shit about his sons’ dogeared playboys or (Sammy’s) pre-pubescent angst. But he’s pretty sure there’s some pretty awful shit floating around his dad’s head, and he’s pretty sure his dad is deliberately keeping them out of it. It’s one of the kinder things John Winchester has done for his boys. 

John’s dreams are always consistently bland and normal. He learned his lesson about the war zone, too little too late, but he builds generic buildings with ease. Dean doesn’t know if it’s habit or if that’s all John will let himself build. Things are different when it’s just Dean and Sam.

They spend years wandering through each other’s dreams. 

Dean’s dreams bounce between the hyper-structured and the unpredictable. His dreams are stable, but limited. Office buildings, compounds, cookie cutter houses. It’s easier to keep his projections calm and his personal shit under wraps. His dreams are convincing as reality, but he falls into memories too easily. He doesn’t have the patience to create layers and mazes. 

Sam can build cities--fuzzy at the edges, but real enough at the center that it takes a while to figure out what feels off. His dreams feel hyper real, filled with traffic and a million people who don’t look like anybody they’ve ever seen in Lawrence, Kansas. Dean’s gotten lost in a mall, a parking deck, and one alarmingly large wal-mart in Sam’s mind. 

The older they get, the more familiar they become with each other’s minds. Their projections move from wary to non-chalant to downright friendly. Sam can practically live in Dean’s mind. His projections are annoyingly fond of him, nothing but smiles and fist bumps, and a surprising number of older women asking him if he’s eating enough. Sam’s only been killed once; he’d wandered too close to their old home--a burnt out shell even in the privacy of his mind--and the woman slit his throat before he could pass the mailbox. Dean doesn’t apologize, and Sam doesn’t ask. Their history is the same, but their wounds have different shapes, and only Dean can pick at his own scabs. 

Sam returns the favor. Dean wakes up in a house that he instinctively knows is supposed to be their childhood home, idealized and completely at odds with everything they are, but it feels like Sam and something they could have had in some other universe. But something feels off, and so Dean does what his father taught him to do; he snoops. It doesn’t take him long; it’s a secret that doesn’t realize it’s a secret and needs to be hidden. There’s a crinkled college pamphlet for Stanford stuck in a desk drawer, corners and pages bent like someone has repeatedly flipped through it. He hears footsteps behind him. 

“Sammy, what is this?” he asks, turning around. 

Mary Winchester stabs him between the ribs, and Dean forgets how to breathe. 

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Sam says, choked up, and Dean doesn’t know if it’s for hiding a secret or for being murdered by their mother. Either way, he rolls his shoulders and brushes him off. 

“Don’t worry about it. Some of us were born to be cool--me. And some of us were born to be dorks--you.”

Sam blows his hair out of his eyes, and seriously he’s going to cut it off while he sleeps, and sighs. 

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

And they move on. But they both learn to defend their thoughts and hide them well, even from each other: bank vaults and locked doors and safe deposit boxes. They learn how to break and enter and lockpick and crack safes in the real world and the dream one. They do it for long enough, that Dean starts to forget that it’s not normal. 

* * *

Dean graduates from high school and enlists in the Army. Sam punches him in the face.

“I can’t believe you would do this!”

Sam is fifteen and growing like a weed, and more importantly, he’s got a mean right hook. Dean’s pretty sure his nose is broken. Son of a bitch. 

“It’s the army, kid. Not a chain gang.”

“It’s bullshit!” Sam’s voice cracks, but Dean doesn’t have it in him to make fun. 

Everyone thinks that Dean’s the hottest burning Winchester--enough underaged bar room brawls will give anyone a rep--but Sam, when he breaks, is a goddamn nightmare. Being the more emotional Winchester means he goes from one to a hundred and ten in a heartbeat. And the jerk holds a grudge. In his defense though, it’s genetic. 

“Why are you doing this?”

And how does he answer that? Because his dad wants him to. Because he’s good at taking orders. Because he doesn’t know what else to do. He reaches out and ruffles Sam’s hair. 

“The guidance counselor stopped taking my calls. Not all of us can be brainiacs, weirdo.”

Sam tries to glare at him, but his mouth twists and his cheeks get blotchy, and Dean knows what's coming. He pulls him into a tight hug. 

“This doesn’t change anything. You’re still my baby bro, and I’ll still be able to kick your ass, no matter how tall you get, sasquatch. You need me? I’m there.”

Sam glances up, eyes red and watery, and Dean clears his throat. 

“Besides, dude. Ladies love a man in uniform.”

Sam shoves at him, and Dean wrestles him into a headlock. 

The next day Sam laughs himself off the couch when he sees Dean’s black and blue face, nose definitely broken. So, Dean guesses he’s forgiven. 

Dean ships off to Missouri, after another hug from Sammy that absolutely did not make him cry. John claps him on the shoulder, proud but stern when he warns him against bringing down the Winchester name. It’s a heavy name in the Armed Forces, and Dean doesn’t know if it’ll help him or hurt him. But he nods and promises to do his best. 

Dean breezes through basic training, and even the other army brats who came up in the homeschooled version of basic training courtesy of veteran parents look impressed. He gets shipped off to Fort Benning for sniper training and comes out on top, and it’s a surefire way to ruffle feathers. But Dean Winchester is the perfect blend of charming asshole and scarily competent badass that people tend to gravitate to him. The ‘one brotherhood’ part of the military fits him like a glove, and once you prove you have someone’s back, you’re good. There’s murmuring from his superiors about grooming leadership skills, and Dean eats it up. Being in the army feels, maybe not safe, but comforting. The kind of consistent routine he’s been missing for years. He tries not to read too much into that. The hardest part of being in the army is being away from home and waiting for the phone call from jail. 

Ash is a weirdo redneck hippie and the best intel man Dean has ever worked with. He transferred up from Arizona, and he’s been a right thorn in Dean’s side. He’s a chill dude and kind of a prick, and Dean instantly likes him. He’s also an only child. 

“Seriously, man. It can’t be that bad.”

It is, and then some. Dean grimaces. “It is.”

It’s like he left the gas on and the iron on and some C-4 in the microwave. Only a matter of time til the house blows up. They’re just fucked.

“They just don’t get along. At all. It’s dad’s way or the highway, and Sam’s got a bag packed and a foot out the door.”

Ash glances up at him from his spot on the floor. He’s flipping through Dean’s copy of busty asian babes, and Dean’s too tired to feel anything more than distantly annoyed. 

“Your pops is strict?”

“Army Ranger. Strict as they come,” Dean says. “He’s trying to do what’s right by us. It just rubs Sam the wrong way.”

“And you?”

He shrugs. “Family. ‘Nough said.”

Ash watches him and frowns, like he knows Dean’s brushing him off. He doesn’t know that much about John Winchester, just that he’s the kind of soldier you’ll hear urban legends about. But everyone knows that family’s different outside of uniform. He lets it go. 

“Look, man. Your brother’s what? Fifteen? Sixteen? If you don’t hate your dad when you’re a little high school pissant, then you’re doing something wrong.”

Dean snorts and snatches the skin mag away from Ash, and they change the subject. 

Still. 

Dean calls home as often as he can. It’s almost always Dad who picks up, and most conversations are gruff jokes and war stories that Dean’s heard a million times, but it helps with the homesickness that’s starting to creep up on him. Sam, because he’s a fucking nerd, actually writes him. Long letters that are equal parts bitching and school stories--there’s a redhead with dimples in his APUSH class who actually laughs at his jokes, and Sam swears he’s in love--and Dean keeps them all. 

Dean doesn’t really write back--what the fuck is he going to write about?--but he does send doodles on postcards. Mostly comics about Ash doing stupid shit, and once, a card with an extremely detailed portrait of a clown that gets sent back to him with a polaroid of a middle finger attached. Dean’s never been more proud. 

Two years in, Sam turns seventeen, Dad loses his shit, and PASIV technology shows up on base.

* * *

Dean goes home on leave, summertime so he can have as much time with Sam as possible. He tries not to pout when Sam has to lean down to hug him.

“What the hell are they feeding you, Sasquatch?”

Sam laughs, and it’s deeper, less familiar. 

“Better than the shit they feed you, shrimp.”

Sam might be taller, but Dean can still kick his ass without breaking a sweat, and he pulls Sam up off the floor when he’s done cleaning it with him. 

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

“I heard you got your license. Finally. What’d you do, bribe the teacher?”

“Funny. Rachel let me borrow her truck. Piece of cake.”

Rachel. Chemistry whizz with freckles and a nice ass. Almost as nerdy as Sam.

“What, Dad wouldn’t let you use the Impala? Hot cars get hot girls, Sammy.”

Sam smiles, but it’s a little flat. 

“Nah. I think Dad’s saving it for you. Besides,” Sam punches him in the shoulder, “it’s not my style.”

“You don’t have style, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam.”

Dean tackles him over the side of the couch, and he comes embarrassingly close to losing to Sam. It feels great. 

They spend the first week drinking cheap beer and visiting every burger joint in a ten mile radius. John Winchester has pulled a disappearing act, and Sam brushes it off with an eye roll. 

“He said he was going to Gitmo. No idea if he was serious.”

Dean tries not to feel relieved. Or guilty. It doesn’t work.

Sam pulls the PASIV out one day, nervous. 

“Dean, I want to show you something.”

Sam builds the dream, a solid, beautiful thing. It’s a city Dean doesn’t recognize, but it’s warm and breezy, the sun bright but not miserable. Sam is looser, and Dean realizes how tightly his brother had been holding himself in the house. Sam’s projections crowd him, a dozen hands smoothing his hair, cupping his face, pulling him close. Dean is overwhelmingly relieved that his brother seems as happy to be back together as Dean is. 

Sam’s not in a hurry, and they wander around without a destination in mind. Dean takes in the buildings, historic brick and modern glass arches. Everyone they pass are young, athletic, happy. He knows what he’s looking at. 

“Stanford,” and it’s not a question. 

Sam smiles, and every projection brightens. 

“I talked to my counselor, you know, the one who screened your calls, and an admissions recruiter. They want me to apply, early decision.”

“Did you tell dad yet?”

The sun dims a little, and some of the projections freeze and look at him.

“Yes, he knows.”

Sam doesn’t fly into a rage; he just slumps. Dean suspects all the anger has been used up in shouting matches. He slings an arm around Sam’s shoulders. 

“Well, I think you should go.”

Sam glances at him, a little uncertain.

“Really?”

“Hell yeah!” And Dean almost means it. He’d follow his brother to the ends of the world, and if Sam wants to go to college, then he should go to college. But Dean can’t help that part of him that feels like he’s being left behind. But either way, Sam believes him. The sun is back out, and they get caught up in what is essentially a foam party, complete with beer, co-eds, and the world’s craziest, gravity defying slip’n’slide.    
It’s amazing and fun right up until John shows up. 

“Boys-” the projections rip him apart before he can finish his sentence. They all tip out of the dream and into a tense silence. 

John breaks first. 

“A little co-eds gone wild. Well, at least I’m not paying for pay-per-view.”

Sam bobs his head and disappears into the kitchn. John snorts and rolls his eyes. 

“Three months of this bullshit. You’d think he was a thirteen year old girl with the way he’s been moping around the place. Sulks around for days after a trial.”

John stiffens as soon as the words are out of his mouth. Dean stares at him. 

“What trials?”

“He’s got talent, Dean. He can build dreams like I’ve never seen. We’ve just been testing it. How well can he hide information. How quickly can he pull something out of my projections. It’s amazing, Dean--”

Dean doesn’t punch his father in the face. But it’s a close thing. 

“What the actual fuck, Dad? What the hell are you doing to him?”

“Dean, this is not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? He’s a kid! He’s supposed to be dicking around in parking lots and going to fucking prom and shit.”

“He’s growing up, Dean. He needs to know how the world works.”

Dean moves towards his father, toe to toe. 

“He’s a kid. He just needs to go to school and steal beer and have a life. He needs-” A father. He doesn’t say it, but John seems to hear it anyway. Dean backs away and leans against a wall, bracing his arms above him. John turns to him. 

“I told you to look after your brother, and you have. But I’m your father, and it’s my job to look after both of you.”

Dean shakes his head, but John leaves the room, and they leave it like that. Dean would kill for a whiskey, but John’s beat him to it, and sharing a bottle with his father feels too much like an ugly cycle, so he goes outside instead. 

Sam is there, and he hands Dean a lukewarm beer. He can tell by the set of his shoulders that Sam heard everything. Dean has no idea what to do. 

“Look. Dad’s a prick and a big ol’bag of crazy, but he’s doing what he can.”

“It’s fucked up. He’s fucked up. And you know it.”

“He wasn’t always though. It was different before...before everything happened. If mom was here-”

“Yeah, but she’s not! And I get it, I do. It fucked you guys up. But I’m not him, and I’m not you.”

Dean drops the beer, and slams his brother against the wall. 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, so shut the fuck up.”

Sam’s scared, Dean can feel it, but he doesn’t back down. 

“You wanna know what’s in Dad’s head? You wanna know what kind of shit he’s got locked up behind those doors? You wanna know how many times Mom has shown up to kill us?”

Dean doesn’t know what to say. His arms drop, and Sam shoves him away.

“You’re my brother. And I love you. And I miss Mom, and I hate that we lost her. But this is your baggage. Not mine. As soon as that letter gets here, I’m gone. I have to get out of this house, Dean. I can’t handle this the way you can.”

And isn’t that just ten kinds of fucked up. Dean doesn’t even know where to begin with unpacking his own bullshit, let alone sharing it. 

“Sammy-”he tries, but his voice cracks, and he can feel his face flush in a way that means he’s about to breakdown. Sam leans his forehead against Dean’s. 

“Yeah. I know, dude.”

Before he leaves, Dean makes it as clear as possible to John Winchester that he needs to stay the fuck out of Sammy’s head. No telling if it’ll stick, but Sam hugs him for the effort. 

* * *

Within a couple of months, the PASIV shows up at the Fort, and Dean is officially fucked.

They pitch it as a training tool, something to help develop highly specialized soldiers. Dean’s dumbass winds up in the test group. He’s the only one in the room who doesn’t look confused when they explain the concept of dreamsharing. 

“Every one of you is going to go under with a specialist who will structure the dreamspace and document your reaction. Go into this with an open mind, literally, and accept that there’s going to be a lot of failure before there’s any success with this. Good luck.”

Dean kind of wants to puke. It doesn’t get better when he meets his specialist. 

“Ash, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“You might want to be nicer to the guy who’s going to be running around in your mind, man. And to answer your question, I’m intel. And incredibly detail oriented--”

“You lost your rifle three times last month--”

“And I have incredibly solid dreams. You’ve never seen me work up here,” Ash taps his head, “but believe me, I got it where it counts, asshole.”

Dean tries to grin, but it comes out lopsided. Ash sighs. 

“Relax, man. I don’t care about your weird secrets. You into tentacle porn?”

Dean shakes his head. 

“Then don’t worry about it. I’ve seen some sick shit. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

They’re under thirty seconds before a projection blasts Ash away with a bazooka. 

“What the fuck, Dean?”

He winces when Ash jumps up and away from him. 

“Ash-”

“Your shit is militarized! How the fuck is that even possible? You been eating your dream wheaties? No one’s torn me apart that fast. Not the first time. They don’t even--”

Ash turns to back to Dean. “Realize they’re dreaming.”

Dean avoids his eyes. 

“This isn’t your first time under.”

Ash squats in front of him. “Holy shit. How? When?”

He pops back up and starts pacing. 

“I’ve been stuck with your ass since you joined. I mean, fuck, this has been under wraps for years. They had to after some jackass tried to run off with it.”

Dean glances up at him, pointedly. 

Ash is floored. 

“What are you a highlander? That was like ten years ago. You were a kid. Hell, you are a kid. I’ve got beer cans older than you.”

Dean shrugs and tries that charming Winchester smirk that’s gotten him out of a shit over the years. 

“What can I say. Dad didn’t want us unprepared. Defend your home, your hearth, and your head.”

Ash looks nauseous. 

“Dean. Dean that’s insane. That’s just straight up child-”

Dean cuts him off. “It is what it is, Ash. Now what the fuck am I going to do?”

Ash throws his hands up. 

“Fuck if I know. This is a huge fucking problem.”

* * *

They start slow. They doctor some paperwork. They drink a lot of beer. Ash learns not to take it personally when Dean’s projections get creative with murder. Dean builds dreams with Ash’s projections.

“Is there a reason you always have a mullet in dreams?”

“Because that’s how God intended me to be.”

Ash’s projections are annoyingly calm. 

“I’m an open book, man. I also spend all day, every day, letting people wander around in my head. Can’t do that if my subconscious likes uzis. Don’t worry, security is tighter on the second level.”

“Second level?”

“Dream within a dream?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Secrets are buried deep. The more you mess around with this kind of technology, the more your mind starts to kind of stash that shit away. Considering how beefed up your top level is, I’m pretty sure your second level is like Defcon 2.”

Dean nods. “Probably.”

“So walk me through your shit, kid. Let’s see what you can do.”

Ash walks him through the basics of what they’re hoping to do with the PASIV. 

“Keep in mind these are all kind of layman’s terms. I’m sure the military bureaucracy will come up with even stupider titles, but this is how it’s set up now. I’m what you call an architect. I build the dreams and let you guys fill them up with your projections. You a builder?”

Dean nods. “I can. They’re stable enough. But Sammy’s the true builder. He can build a city without trying. He once got me lost in a Starbucks. Prick.” 

Dean smiles, fond, but Ash just looks impressed. 

“Builders like that are rare. It’s a lot of work to build like that, and even more work to keep it steady. I wonder if he could do that on more than one level.”

“Don’t,” Dean says, and it comes out harsh. Ash holds his hands up. 

“I’m not going to call him up on the phone and recruit him. I’m just curious.”

“Well don’t. No one here needs to know what Sam can do. He’s never seen it or used it. He has no idea what the fuck the PASIV is. End of story.”

Ash nods, quiet. “I got it, man. Lips are sealed.”

He tries to reel his anger back in, but it’s hard. Ash’s projections are giving him a wide berth, and it helps him calm down. Ash rolls with it. 

“So you’ve got architects, you got miners, and you’ve got decoys.”

Dean frowns. 

“Miners. You go in, dig around in their head and pull their secrets out or whatever. Like data mining, get it?”

“Yeah, I get it Ash. What the fuck is a decoy?”

“Basically you’re playing dress up in someone else’s head. The dreamer, when they know they’re dreaming, kind of slots the others into whatever they make them look like. Hence my glorious mullet. But some people can change their appearance enough to trick the brain into thinking they’re someone else completely. So, what you got, Winchester?”

“Well, I know I can’t do that decoy shit. But I can pull anything out of someone’s head.”

Ash nods, unhappy. 

“Yeah, I figured that’d be it. We’ve got a problem. You’re ahead of the curve, Dean. Actually, you’re not ahead of the curve. You’ve already graduated and have a doctorate. I don’t know that we can really hide that long term. They’re going to start pushing you guys through your paces; they’re gonna wanna see what you can do. There’s no natural handicap in the subconscious mind. They’re looking for raw talent, and you’ve got it amigo.”

“So basically I’m fucked.”

“Yeah. You’re fucked.”

Ash slaps him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

* * *

The training sessions are brutal. They start off with deserts, bunkers, insurgents--all the familiar shit. They’ve got timers on their wrists that count down the dreams. A good chunk of the others panic. Diffusing a bomb never gets less stressful; and shockingly, watching your men blow themselves up over and over again doesn’t get easier. They weed out of the more unstable soldiers pretty quickly.

They start to get creative after that. 

The dreams are all, objectively, terrible. The best is a zombie apocalypse, and the worst is a dream that can only be based on Vietnam with a side of acid. Even Dean loses his nerve wandering through a humid jungle, ready to be shivved or blown up by a land mine at any given moment. At the end of six months, there’s only a dozen of them left. By that point, it’s less about physical skill and more about mental fortitude. Horrific reenactments of D-Day. Being trapped in a sinking submarine for hours. Buried alive in coffins that only seem to shrink the longer the dream lasts. Anything that counts as high stress. 

Jo, a petite blonde with the kind of knife skills that make Dean nervous, calls it out. “They’re hothousing us.”

“What like a Phish concert?”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s hot boxing, dumbass. No, hothousing. You know, that shit where they try to turn toddlers into Mozarts. Pressure us until we break through or break down.”

Dean nods. “Weeding out the weak.”

“Exactly,” she says. “It’s fucking sick.”

“It’s the law of the jungle, babe,” Ash says through a mouthful of pork rinds. 

Jo wrinkles her nose. “Call me babe again, and I’ll drop your ass in a volcano again.”

“I forgot about that. Don’t think I won’t get you back.”

“You can try.”

* * *

They’ve broken the twelve down into teams of four, and Dean lucks out. Ash stays as his builder, and Jo and Benny as his fellow extractors ( _ “I like miner better, but the higher-ups said extractor sounds sexier” _ ), and if either of them notice that Dean slides in and out of the dreamscape like breathing, they keep it to themselves.

For newcomers, they learn pretty damn quick. Benny has some kind of sixth sense for when they’ve tipped their hand and the projections are about to go ape shit; Jo’s sneaky as shit and surprisingly stealthy. They’re good. But Dean is better. 

They can all find the planted secret--geographic coordinates, and they’re both getting quicker. But nine times out of ten, Dean wakes up with the coordinates and something a little more personal, something the dreamer didn’t realize they’d stashed away. 

It’s instinct. It’s efficient. 

It gets noticed. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They throw him in the deep end. He bounces between two of what they consider their best interrogators. Gordon is a long term PASIV user who bleeds red, white, and blue, shits bald eagles, and has a doctorate in mindfucking. Alastair is just an asshole who has no problem turning a dream into a goddamn Saw movie. Dean can’t decide which one is worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me preface this chapter by saying that while this is a fusion between Supernatural and Inception, in no way are Arabs/Muslims/POWs the story's equivalent of the monsters/demons that are hunted in canon. This chapter is purely for the development of how the PASIV is being (mis)used and how Dean morphs it into something else. 
> 
> This chapter is also from Dean's point of view, so there is a strong focus on his feelings of shame/guilt that takes away focus from the feelings of the person being hurt; this is addressed in the next chapter.
> 
> Tags have been updated to reflect torture/violence

Colonel Henriksen doesn’t beat around the bush. Dean is halfway into the seat in his office when he slides a folder across the desk. Dean glances inside and sees a photo of a middle aged man, Pakistani most likely, and a shit ton of redacted information.

“I take it this isn’t my new bunkmate.”

Henriksen ignores him.

“You’re looking at the sixth link in a terrorist chain that stretches from here to Kurram. We need your help to find the next link.”

Dean looks at him, confused. “I don’t-”

“You started on the PASIV project as a trial run to developing streamlined training for soldiers. Hone your combat skills, prepare you for the realities of war, etc. But now you’re in the big leagues. You’re a natural, got a lot of talent. It’s time to leave the lab and get in the field.”

“The field being this guy’s head?”

Henriksen nods.

Dread weighs heavy in his stomach. He’s a fucking idiot. He should have known it was going to go this way. He should have known that he couldn’t fly under the radar. John Winchester you asshole. He still tries to play dumb.

“So, what does this mean? What exactly will I be doing?”

Henriksen looks him, impassive.

“Whatever it takes.”

Three words that can mean fucking anything, especially in the military. Especially with highly classified technology. Dean doesn’t even know where to start.

So Dean does what he does best and nods. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

They throw him in the deep end. He bounces between two of what they consider their best interrogators. Gordon is a long term PASIV user who bleeds red, white, and blue, shits bald eagles, and has a doctorate in mindfucking. Alastair is just an asshole who has no problem turning a dream into a goddamn _Saw_ movie. Dean can’t decide which one is worse.

The man in the folder from Henriksen is Jalal--a Pakistani native who had migrated to the U.S. twenty years ago and ran a tiny grocery store with his wife and two sons. He’s forty two years old, balding, and he flinches if Dean looks at him for too long.

Alastair tears him apart.

His dreams are standard. They dream up a compound, heaving with Alastair’s projections, lock Jalal into a detainment room, and then beat the shit out of him. It feels simple, to hit Jalal and force his head down to look at dreamt up papers with bits and pieces of a proposed terrorist attack.

_“What are you planning? Who is the target? Who are you working with?”_

The man doesn’t answer, and Alastair throws him down to the ground and kicks until there’s an audible crack that can only mean broken ribs. He coughs up blood, and Dean frowns.

“Does he speak English?”

Alastair doesn’t answer, just drives his boot in further. Dean looks at Jalal and crouches down to look him in the face.

“Can you understand what I’m saying?”

All he can hear are whimpers and cries, and Dean knows enough Urdu to know that they’re just prayers, pleas to a god that doesn’t exist inside of Alastair’s head. Jalal stares at him, tries to--both of his eyes are swollen, and at least one of his eye sockets is cracked. But Dean turns away. He can feel the shame burning up his neck.

Alastair doesn’t seem to realize that Dean has stepped back, and judging from the enthusiasm he has when he grips Jalal around the throat, he probably doesn’t care.

“Alastair.”

He turns, confused. There’s blood splattered across his face, and Jalal’s head droops from where he’s pinned against the wall. Dean almost loses his nerve.

Almost.

“I don’t think this is working.”

He laughs, and Dean has to force himself not to jerk back.

“It’s your first day, kid, and we’re just getting started. It’s a little early to admit defeat.”

Dean bristles but keeps his voice neutral.

“I’m just sayin, man. I mean how many times you done this with him?”

Alastair just shrugs, like he genuinely doesn’t remember how many times he’s tortured this guy.

“What’s your point, Winchester?”

_My point is that you’re not doing this for results; you’re doing it for fun._

“Maybe he doesn’t actually know anything.”

Alastair rolls his eyes. “Christ, did you even read the file? He’s got three direct connections with members of ISIS: one of them is his wife’s cousin, one went to the same school as him, and one is a member of his fucking church-- _mosque, Dean corrects in his head--_ You seriously trying to tell me that’s all just a coincidence?”

“Eh, maybe. Maybe they’re just from a small town. Maybe he left before he could get recruited. Hell, maybe he is ISIS. All I’m saying is that this shit doesn’t seem to be working. If he hasn’t broken by now, I don’t think he’s going to.”

Alastair gives him a look of pure condescension.

“Don’t tell me they managed to give me the only soft touch grunt in the batch. What exactly did you think was going to happen here?”

Dean doesn’t have an answer, and Alastair doesn’t wait for one.

“This isn’t the goddamn Stanford experiment. This is the real world. This piece of shit can be what we need to save thousands of lives, and you’re bowing out because of a few _imaginary_ wounds? You joined the Army, not the Peace Corps. You swore an oath to do whatever it takes to keep this country safe. If you can’t do your duty, then you shouldn’t be here. So what will it be--300 million people or one man?”

Dean pauses. He can’t look away from Alastair’s cold face or Jalal’s broken one. Was this man really the key to cracking ISIS? No, probably not. But it’s all about the connections. Finding the next piece. And he’s right. The wounds are in his head. He knows it’s fake. Knows it isn’t permanent. Hopes it isn’t. He has to look away from Jalal. Alastair takes it for agreement.

_Silence is acquiescence._

“Good. Now hand me those pliers and hold him down.”

When the dream ends, Dean has to run to make it to the bathroom. He’s still retching when Alastair comes in. He leans against the stall door and looks distinctly unimpressed.

“Toughen up, buttercup. This was just the beginning. There’s a thousand more just like him. Once we break him down, you’ll see how it works. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early. Get some sleep.”

Alastair laughs at his own bullshit, and Dean is too busy dry heaving to flip him off. 

For the first time in ten years, Dean is thankful that he can’t dream without the PASIV.

* * *

They stick with Alastair’s approach for another two weeks. Dean participates as little as he can get away with, but there’s a quiet voice in his head, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Sam, that says things like _bystander effect_ and _nuremberg defense_ and _the banality of evil_ and _jesus fucking christ is this what John Winchester has been doing for the past fifteen years?_ Dean goes back to his bunk with smooth hands, skin completely unblemished, the blood and the split knuckles left behind in Jalal’s head, and somehow that makes it worse. No one looking at him should make the mistake of thinking that his hands are clean.

When Gordon takes over for Alastair, Dean is stupid enough to feel relieved. Like maybe this will be the good cop part. 

He’s so fucking naive.

Gordon doesn’t use his fists or whatever sharp bits of metal he can get his hands on. He uses Jalal’s fears against him, and Dean can’t decide which way is worse.

Gordon builds the dream and populates it. Dean recognizes the dream as Jalal’s neighborhood in New York, but it feels off. The proportions are right, but the streets are quieter than they should be, not enough people, too few cars. The details of the dream are glossed over. The street lamps are different sizes, the sidewalks are jagged, and there’s no way in hell that Jalal will believe this is reality. But Gordon doesn’t seem to care. Jalal is cuffed to his side, and Gordon has the gun trained on his head.

“Let’s try this again.”

Dean doesn’t hear what happens next. He moves to the store--the lights are flickering a bit and everything inside seems to be tilting to the right a bit. He pokes around the counter; there’s nothing behind the it--even the cabinet for the cigarettes is empty. But Dean can feel an idea forming. He goes back outside just in time to see Gordon shoot a woman, who can only be Jalal’s wife, in the back of the head execution style. Jalal is sobbing on the ground between her body and the body of a kid, and Gordon is completely calm. All three of them know this is a dream, but Dean thinks about being forced to watch someone kill Sam--even just once would be enough to make Dean lose his fucking mind--and he can’t even imagine what the hell Jalal is feeling to see it happen a dozen times--but he forces himself to move closer.

“Gordon. Did he tell you anything?”

Gordon shakes his head. “Not yet. But we’ve got all day.”

Dean nods out of habit. “Right. Can I talk to you for a second though?”

Gordon raises his eyebrows. “Alastair said you were squeamish. I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“No, it’s not that. I just, I had an idea.”

“Alright. We’ll talk topside. I’m in the zone here.”

Christ. How was it possible that he went from being on a team of beer guzzling army brats to sadistic lunatics in the space of a month?

The dream winds down, and Dean watches Jalal’s entire extended family bleed out in the street. When he wakes up, he doesn’t have to puke, but he can’t quite meet anyone’s eyes either. Jalal is taken back to his cell, and Gordon gestures for Dean to follow him out to the mess. They both grab a cup of coffee and sit down at an empty table in the corner.

“Okay, Winchester. What’s your million dollar idea?”

“Have we tried letting him populate the dream?”

Gordon lets out a bark of laughter.

“You suicidal? His projections would rip us apart before we hit the ground.”

“Not if they didn’t know we were there.”

Gordon takes a sip of coffee. “So what, we’re going to sneak up on him and scare him into talking?”

“I’m saying we don’t talk to him at all. More than that, I don’t think we should let him know he’s dreaming. Let him populate the dream, he’ll bring his own versions of people and his thoughts will start filling up all the empty spaces in the dream. He’s used to keeping his mouth shut in his dreams; he’s not used to hiding his own thoughts.”

Gordon shrugs.

“I guess that’s one way. Time consuming though.”

Dean nods. “Maybe. But beating him hasn’t worked. Threatening his family hasn’t worked. Maybe we should try out some other ideas.”

“Why the hell not. Give it your best shot, Winchester.”

* * *

He reaches out to Ash first. He brings a six pack and the latest Busty Asian Babe.  

“Dammit man, why would you even try to bring me into this?”

“Because I need your help, Ash.”

“How the hell can I help you with this?”

“You’re the best dream builder we have. The best architect.”

Ash grumbles, but he cracks open a beer. He doesn’t offer one to Dean.

“This ain’t my area. I’m not a fucking UFC cage fighter, and I’m not Freud. I can’t just start fucking around in people’s heads. There’s no telling how much damage is happening. This isn’t right, Dean.”

The irritation from earlier is gone, and now Ash just looks worried. Dean can’t blame him.

“I know, Ash. That’s why I’m asking. If we can do this right, we can avoid all that other shit.”

Ash puts his beer down and drags a hand over his face.

“Dean-”

“Please. We have to try.”

Ash rubs at his eyes and sighs, defeated.

“You owe me, Winchester. I’m talking major, major I.O.U. The kind you can’t pay off with shitty beer or hentai.”

Dean nods. “Got it.”

“I mean it. And the second I need to dip out, I’m out. And it’s my call. You try to keep me there, and I’ll drop you like a bag of bricks.”

“I promise. You say the word, and you’re out. No hard feelings.”

Ash chugs the beer and then belches, loud and proud.

“Get me a whiteboard, a computer, and Harvelle. We’re gonna need her.”

**Author's Note:**

> Military jargon is embarrassingly incorrect. Feel free to shoot me a line with corrections. I kept it vague as hell to avoid as much stupidity as possible. 
> 
> Tags to change/update as story progresses


End file.
